Published on 11 March 2024
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 103/19
Kalliopi BATZANAKAKI
against Greece
lodged on 14 December 2018
communicated on 21 February 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the impossibility for the applicant to acquire ownership of two plots of land by the method of usucapio, as the domestic courts concluded that the plots had belonged to a Monastery and by virtue of a Legislative provision of 22 April/16 May 1926, the real estate of monasteries was not subject to the rules of usucapio.
The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the above conclusion of the domestic courts resulted in the deprivation of her property which she was legally cultivating since 1980. She further complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the Court of Cassation erroneously rejected her argument that the Holy Monastery of Saint Marina of Voni lacked standing on the grounds that she had not invoked it before the appellate court, whereas it followed from the submitted documents that she had raised the relevant objection.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention due to the reply given to the applicant’s argument concerning the locus standi of the monastery?
2. Has there been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention on account of the domestic courts’ conclusion that the applicant never acquired the plots in question, as they were not subject to the rules of usucapio (see Kosmas and Others v. Greece, no. 20086/13, 29 June 2017)?